The Useless Facts Thread

[Stormwatch]

The famous cover pictures for The Beatles' compilations 1962-1966 ("the red album") and 1967-1970 ("the blue album") were taken by Welsh photographer Angus McBean, in 1963 and 1969 respectively, at the EMI House, 20 Manchester Square, London, England.

[Stormwatch]

When John Hinckley attempted to kill Ronald Reagan, he actually missed all shots; Reagan was hit by a bullet that ricocheted off the bullet-proof presidential limousine.

[EinhanderZwei]

In Rocky IV, during the final fight with Drago, the round counters say "РАЗ", which is 'time' in Russian, but not 'round'. It should've been "РАУНД"

[nash87]

turns out bees sting me in the face because of my choice of shampoo. good to know

[Stormwatch]

In 1982, before starting his acting career, Russell Crowe released a pop single titled "I Just Want To Be Like Marlon Brando", under the name Russ Le Roq.

And just now, Crowe has been cast as Jor-El in the next Superman movie.

Marlon Brando played Jor-El in the original Superman movie.

[ZOM]

turns out bees sting me in the face because of my choice of shampoo. good to know

I knew it! I knew those suckers act differently with different scents on. Someone should produce pink anti-Hibachi shampoo. black label.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

For guys that have gone (or are going) through chemo treatment, one perk is not having to shave facial hair for a few weeks.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[PC Engine Fan X!]

When John Hinckley attempted to kill Ronald Reagan, he actually missed all shots; Reagan was hit by a bullet that ricocheted off the bullet-proof presidential limousine.

The Secret Service that accompanied President Reagan inside the presidential limo when he got shot during that assassination attempt, quickly realized that he was in serious danger...so they made the ultimate decision to head on to the hospital as quickly as possible -- saved his life in doing so. That was a dark day in America's history considering that it was all over the news/radio. The Secret Service were packing some serious firepower that day (including Uzis withdrawn after the incident happened). Then Secretary of State, James Brady, got hit in the head during the shooting and uses a wheelchair to this day -- was the one whom drafted the "Brady Bill" that passed and became law.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Damocles]

Then Secretary of State, James Brady, got hit in the head during the shooting and uses a wheelchair to this day -- was the one whom drafted the "Brady Bill" that passed and became law.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Actually, the Brady Bill was mostly his wifes doing.

Fun fact: Sarah Brady once bought a hunting rifle for her son. Though technically not a straw purchase since gifts are not covered, this is something many gun control advocates want to do away with.

[Stormwatch]

Queen's Brian May plays with coins rather than plastic guitar picks.

[nash87]

turns out bees sting me in the face because of my choice of shampoo. good to know

I knew it! I knew those suckers act differently with different scents on. Someone should produce pink anti-Hibachi shampoo. black label.

i hear they like to sting you if you wear black too. so you should probably stick with a dan hibiki pink shirt with the pink anti-hibachi shampoo.

i'd rather 20 of them sting me in the face then step on one barefoot. i'll never walk outside without foot protection again

[PC Engine Fan X!]

turns out bees sting me in the face because of my choice of shampoo. good to know

I knew it! I knew those suckers act differently with different scents on. Someone should produce pink anti-Hibachi shampoo. black label.

i hear they like to sting you if you wear black too. so you should probably stick with a dan hibiki pink shirt with the pink anti-hibachi shampoo.

i'd rather 20 of them sting me in the face then step on one barefoot. i'll never walk outside without foot protection again

Or just wear a baseball cap to cover that sweet smelling shampoo scent. Easy as pie.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[BIL]

"An Anus Explosion death match was contested between Mr. Gannosuke and H in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling on October 29, 1998 in Korakuen Hall. The stipulations of the match stated that, in order to win a wrestler had to place a firecracker into their opponent's rectum, and have it explode. Gannosuke won this contest after bounding H with his hands around a corner turnbuckle, facing the audience."

~ "H would issue a challenge to Hayabusa, or Masashi Honda for the next Korakuen Hall show. H would request an Anal Explosion match, where the loser would have to have a firecracker set off in their ass, just like Eiji Ezaki & Masashi Honda had to do after graduating the FMW Dojo." ~

[neorichieb1971]

[Stormwatch]

Taito's Space Invaders (78) was the first game to display a high score; but Exidy's Star Fire (79) was the first to let the player enter his initials.

[Stormwatch]

The Crematorium music in Daikatana is the song from Doom's first stage, played with a pipe organ in a lower tempo. Check it.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Your big toe has two bones while the rest of your toes have three.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[dunpeal2064]

"Go hang a salami, Im a lasagna hog" Is the same backwards

[Stormwatch]

Microsoft's first headquarters was a motel room on a seedy part of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Just across the street was MITS, their sole client at the time.

[Stormwatch]

The AE-35 unit in 2001: A Space Odyssey was a gyroscope.

[Ruldra]

Hey Stormwatch, we need an update on Generalissimo Francisco Franco.

[ED-057]

This is the sort of thing I would have posted about on the obsolete computer museum helpline back in the day (R.I.P. OCM Helpline), like the time I was surfing using "bobcat" on a Compaq Plus, or the time I was running lynx in a shell account via a terminal program on an Apple IIGS.

I have this Pentium 166 laptop which the HDD died in recently, so I put in a 2GB flash card and put Windows NT 4 on it just for the heck of it, since I had never used it before. It seems like a lot of programs that run in 9x or 2000 will also run in NT4. It has a lighter memory/disk footprint than 2000, but Direct3D, power management, plug&play, FAT32, and USB support are all missing. Nice OS, I guess, although I never would have used it in the 90`s because I relied on more DOS programs at that time and many of the Windows programs I use now didn`t exist yet.

Now I`m fooling with NT 3.51, which is a similar OS but with the retro 3.x style interface. The drivers for my old PCMCIA 802.11b wireless card weren`t happy in 3.51, so I resorted to a serial link to my other laptop. Thanks to tips from this page I was able to get online with Firefox 2:

http://toastytech.com/guis/misc4.html

screenshots...
http://www.hyakushiki.net/misc/ntnetnt.png
http://www.hyakushiki.net/misc/ntnetxp.png

I`m going to take this to work and sit and read slashdot, see how many people walk by and do a double take...

[rancor]

Akai Katana was originally going to feature men on horses with exaggerated swords as the main characters. This was then changed to transformable robots/fighter planes. It was decided during development that this game needed a human element so the characters as we know them today were added.

All this and more in the translation I'll be posting soon..

[hashiriya1]

In "Akai Katana" your ships are called "Shake Volts" according to the instruction manual. If you literally translate "Shake Volt" into Japanese you get "Shinden" and the Japanese WWII prototype fighter plane by the name of "Shinden" is a selectable ship. Whoa!

[PC Engine Fan X!]

The average temperature of a household dog is 101 degrees Farenheit.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Stormwatch]

>Fahrenheit

Fact: the only countries that still use that crap are Burma, Liberia and the United States.

[neorichieb1971]

In mobile phone "type" if you type "kiss" it may resort to the word "lips". Which is kinda freaky.

I found this out myself.

[nash87]

putting your balls in your butt before going to sleep prevents you from shitting the bed. peeing the bed is another story *~*

[neorichieb1971]

I've always wondered why cars make that whirring noise when moving in reverse gear. Why doesn't it do that when moving forwards?

[Ruldra]

I've always wondered why cars make that whirring noise when moving in reverse gear. Why doesn't it do that when moving forwards?

I'm no car expert but I've read about this topic before.

There are 2 different types of gears used in the gearbox: straight cut (the one everyone knows) and helical. Straight cut gears are very noisy at high RPMs but they're very efficient at delivering power, so they're normally used for reverse. Helical gears aren't as effective at delivering power but they're silent, so they're used for the forward gears.

Fun fact: in motorsports, since you want the cars to perform at their best, all gears are straight cut. That means the driver has to deal with A LOT of noise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmJH84FnQa8